Mashed Articles

Each issue we’re going to be hunting down the best Linux applications available on the internet so you don’t have to. This could be anything from image manipulation to web browsers, from hardware monitoring to encryption and everything in between. You name it, we’re likely to cover it. Best of all, everything you’ll find on this page will be free and open source. So no nagging popups, no time restrictions and no feature limitations. Just strictly no holds barred functionality! Read on to find out what we’ve been digging during the last month.

RedNotebook NEW
Keep track of your life with this feature-packed journal software. Think of RedNotebook as desktop diary and with it you’ll be able to keep track of everything you do along with all the thoughts you have. Some of its features include tagging, text formatting, image insertion, ability to recognise links and email address, spell check and more.
Website
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Chronicle your life with this diary-making application

Monitorix
It’s common sense to keep a watchful eye on parts of the computer because there’s always a chance you can see the beginnings of a hardware failure before it completely manifests. With Monitorix you’re able to see data including the CPU load, CPU temperature and users currently on the system. Most aspects are displayed in a simple graph making it easy to compare trends.
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ImageMagick
Gimp’s a big name in the open source image editing world, but there are alterntaives. Once such alternative is ImageMagick. With it you can create, edit, compose, or convert bitmap images. There’s also read/write support for over 100 other formats including DPX, EXR, GIF, JPEG, JPEG-2000, PDF, PhotoCD, PNG, SVG, and TIFF.
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Calibre
Like any vast collection of files it all becomes easier to manage when there’s some order to the data chaos. Ebooks are no different, especially if your virtual bookshelf is expansive. With Calbire you can sort books using title, author, date added, date published, size, rating and series. Then there’s the search mechanism, which makes pinpointing a particular book a piece of cake.
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KNOPPIX Live DVD NEW
Wondering what all this Linux business is? Well why don’t you give the operating system a try for yourself without ever being in danger of vapourising your PC? With this live DVD you can run the OS straight from your computer’s optical drive without the need to format your hard drive and go through an elongated install process.
Website
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JAlbum NEW
Share your favourite images with friends, family and strangers alike using this great web album-creating software. Unlike a lot of of server side album scripts, jAlbum scripts can be displayed from just a regular web server without the need for scripting support. There are also endless customisation possibilities thanks to the vast wealth of templates available.
Website
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Create your own visually impressive online gallery of images just like this one

CherryTree
Taking down notes is not really a task that requires a full-blown word processing package. In fact some of the better note-taking tools have features with a particular focus on this task. Take cherrytree, it treats text input with a hierarchical approach and offers rich text and syntax highlighting functionality.
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Dropbox NEW
USB sticks can be a thing of the past thanks to folder synchronisation tools like Dropbox. Once installed, all you need to do is drag the files you want to move into the shared directory in Dropbox. It will then appear on all the other machines you where you’ve installed and registered the software, no matter what the operating system is.
Website
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TrueCrypt
Quite possibly the ultimate encryption utility. We’ve yet to encounter anything that surpasses its breadth of functionality. From the 11 algorithms you can use to password-protect your private files to the option of storing data in files or even partition, TrueCrypt is likely to be the only encryption tool that you’ll ever need.
Website
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Giada NEW
One for the DJs and live performers. Giada bills itself as a hardcore loop machine. There’s the option to load up to 32 samples and select whether to play them in single mode as a drum machine or utilise them more as a sequencer in loop mode. You don’t even need a dedicated hardware controller because all samples can be activated through your computer’s keyboard.
Website
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All these great tools are part of issue 315 of PC Plus, on the shelves on 11th November 2011. Subscribe today to the paper edition and you can get it up to a week early! Subscribe to PC Plus.

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